Title

Unsteady Laminar Buoyant Flow Through Rectangular Vents In Large Enclosures

Abstract

This computational study concentrates on transient laminar flow of air through rectangular vents in horizontal partitions between two large enclosures. For a vent aspect ratio of 1, three flow regimes were identified as the Rayleigh number (Ra) was varied from 1 × 103 to 5 × 104 based on flow parameters in the vent and corresponding modes of heat transfer through it. The Rayleigh number was found to be the critical control parameter, which determined the flow regimes of conduction, countercurrent, and oscillatory flow regimes. As the effective driving potential decreased with time, flow changed from one regime to the other so that higher-Rayleigh-number results showed all three regimes over time. Circulation patterns within the vent for the conduction regime (Ra < 1500) appeared to follow Chandrasekhar's well-known linear stability results. At higher Ra, sudden bursts of upflow with corresponding downflow have been documented and compared with experimental observations in the literature. The time traces of velocity and temperature fields for this flow regime reveal interesting mechanisms, which have been explained. Copyright © 2005 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.

Publication Date

1-1-2006

Publication Title

Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer

Volume

20

Issue

2

Number of Pages

276-284

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.2514/1.11438

Socpus ID

33744552499 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/33744552499

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